Nashville Tech Breakfast July 17

Aug01st

Today, we get the opportunity to update you on a great event that we partner with the School of Computing & Informatics on. The Nashville Tech Breakfast takes place at Spark and is a great opportunity for members of the Tech community to come together. Finn Breland, Enrollment Management Specialist for the School of Computing & Informatics provides a recap of our last breakfast. If you want more information about the offerings of Lipscomb's School of Computing & Informatics, you can find his contact informaiton here. We hope you will join us for the next Nashville Tech Breakfast in October! Check back on our website for the most up to date information!

Steve Lambert and his team on IT globalization issues for Nissan North Americas.

On July 17th, a crowd of around 80 business and technology leaders gathered at Lipscomb’s Spark center for the quarterly Nashville Tech Breakfast. It’s no surprise that many came to learn from Nissan’s Information Systems team regarding their foray into international markets, but some were surprised to learn how Steve Lambert, the keynote speaker, became a top tech executive at an international corporation. Steve’s promotion to VP of Information Systems was not conventional by any means. Rather than seeking someone with a technical background, Nissan North America chose Steve because of his expertise in the financial sector. Nissan is just one of many companies that are seeing success with a closer marriage of the business and IT sectors.

As for their presentation at Spark, Steve and 4 members of his IS team took turns relating several valuable and humorous tales from the development of a new Brazilian manufacturing center. Dealing with unreliable network access, shifting weather conditions, language differences, wayward cattle, and lowered construction and electricity standards, the Nissan team had to overcome significant culture shock when moving forward with the project. Lambert cited Nissan’s insistence on diverse teams and flexible thinking as essentials to their ability to keep their production on schedule.

Although most of the attendees did not represent multinational corporations, their presence spoke volumes regarding Nashville’s growing business-IT community. Nashville’s willingness to gather and share experiences and strategies will continue to grow its brand as a technology leader.